People overwhelmingly assume society is in decline even when the data suggests the opposite.

Thanks for the suggestion. For me WireGuard felt simpler, with fewer moving parts. Still learning though.

Thank you 🤲 Totally agree. Reducing attack surfaces has been a big focus. I'm using WireGuard for access instead of exposing things directly.

Hard lessons push us to do better

I’m not sure if anyone else was affected, but I’m glad they added the extra authentication 🤲 hopefully it prevents the same thing from happening again.

Yes it was related to the way I was running Umbrel and Alby Hub. Check the following post for more info

Thank you 🤲 really appreciate the hugs and vibes

Totally. Each setup has different needs.

ahah thanks 🤲 just doing my best to figure it out

Appreciate that 🤲 Writing it helped me make sense of things too.

The Swiss railway system is famous for its precision, but its reliability is not a cultural accident. It comes from a design philosophy known as the Taktfahrplan—a rhythmic timetable in which trains across the entire country run in repeating cycles, typically every thirty minutes. Introduced nationally in 1982 under the Bahn 2000 project, the Taktfahrplan synchronizes arrivals and departures at key network nodes. When trains from different directions meet at the same minute, passengers can transfer with minimal waiting. This predictable cadence turns a geographically complex rail network into a coherent, clock-like system. Bitcoin, invented nearly three decades later, was created for a radically different domain. Its ten-minute block interval was not designed for passenger coordination but for global decentralization and controlled monetary issuance. Still, the rhythm of Bitcoin’s blocks plays a similar role: it imposes order on a distributed, adversarial network. Miners around the world compete to add blocks, and although any individual block can take one or forty minutes to arrive, the average remains anchored around ten minutes thanks to the difficulty adjustment. This cadence ensures that new bitcoins enter the economy at a predictable rate and that the blockchain grows in steady, manageable steps. The connection between the Taktfahrplan and Bitcoin is not historical—the Swiss railway engineers did not influence Satoshi Nakamoto. Yet both systems show how regular timing can create stability in complex, decentralized environments. In the Swiss network, cadence enables seamless human coordination; in Bitcoin, cadence enables trustless digital consensus. Trains and blocks operate in different worlds, but both remind us that rhythm is a powerful form of order.

Day 0 of Preparing PubPay and Chain Duel for the conference It's an interesting feeling to walk around an empty conference venue the day before it starts So much changes in just a few hours

Or because it gives them access to something they can't get anyway else 😊

Thank you 🤲 and thank you for the video 💜💜 Wouldn't have gone so smoothly without great work with the venue's network and internet connection.

Thanks 🤲 It really isn't easy. Especially when the node needs to be exposed to services online.

Less than two months ago, the Chain Duel Lightning node was hacked and all funds were stolen. Suddenly, everything felt fragile. I didn’t shut everything down, but I didn’t move forward either. I left the node empty for a while, unsure how to proceed, unsure whether starting again was responsible or reckless. What lingered was hesitation. That fear didn’t come from losing belief in Bitcoin or Lightning. It came from realizing how many attack surfaces existed beyond my understanding. How much I had trusted that “it will probably be fine”. Running infrastructure exposes your blind spots. Firewalls you don’t fully understand. Services you expose because tutorials say so. Defaults you accept because questioning them takes time and effort. When something goes wrong, it becomes clear how many assumptions were hiding underneath. Looking back, the issue wasn’t only lack of experience. It was also complacency. I knew some best practices. I knew certain things should be done. But I delayed them. I relied on convenience. I assumed problems were unlikely, or at least unlikely to happen to me. The abstractions made it easy to believe I was in control. The hack broke that illusion. For a while, I didn’t know how to proceed. Running a new node felt dangerous. Not running felt like giving up. That tension sat directly against my principles. So I decided to start over again. Not confidently. Not fearlessly. Just deliberately. This time, I’m trying to reduce what I don’t understand. I removed layers I couldn’t reason about. No Umbrel. No third-party app ecosystem. Fewer moving parts, fewer assumptions. I’m making an effort where before I postponed. SSH keys instead of passwords. Restrictive firewall instead of permissive defaults. VPN instead of exposed services. It’s been slow and humbling. I read, realize I don’t understand enough, then read again. The more I learn, the more aware I become of how limited my understanding is. Uncomfortable, but also clarifying. Bitcoin Core is now running from the command line. Initial Block Download is in progress. It feels appropriate. You verify. You don’t skip steps. Trust has to be rebuilt from first principles. It’s not impressive or fast. It’s quiet and demanding. Lightning will come afterwards. Readiness isn’t a prerequisite. Awareness is. Care. Paying attention. Getting hacked didn’t make me stronger. It made me more honest about my limits. Running a node again isn’t a victory or a return. It’s a decision to keep learning, to take responsibility more seriously than before, and to resist the temptation of comfort over understanding. I’m still uneasy. But I choose to stay engaged, to learn in public, and to do my best.

Thank you 🤲 Merry Christmas!